


cops and robbers

by 264feet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (except not really), Character Study, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Honesty, M/M, Marriage, Mutual Pining, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi-centric, Sad Oma Kokichi, talking about feelings in a dream so it doesnt count
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 18:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15345666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/264feet/pseuds/264feet
Summary: “Darling?” Kokichi snorted. “You love me that much, Shuichi?”“Well… yeah,” Shuichi said, giving a light laugh. “That’s why I married you.”And he froze.[Kokichi wins the Key of Love at the casino. He wakes up in Shuichi’s ideal fantasy. ]





	cops and robbers

Trustworthy.

Kokichi didn’t have such a word in his vocabulary. The word certainly didn’t describe him and he didn’t use it to describe anyone else. It was something that had become apparent to Kokichi since the day he realized his parents left him just because they didn’t want him: you could only count on yourself, and anyone who depended on others was an idiot.

And then there was Shuichi. As much as the detective believed in his competitors in this killing game, as many ‘friends’ as he claimed to make, he still had sold out Kaede in order to survive. He was the type who didn’t let feelings and loyalty blind him to his ambitions-- unlike that idiot, Kaito. And that fascinated Kokichi. If anyone were to end the killing game besides himself, it might be Shuichi.

Of course, if it meant ending the killing game, either one of them would let the other die. That was just the way it was. The two could work toward the same goal, and Kokichi might help steer Shuichi in the right direction, but there was no way that the two would ever actually work together.

Kokichi wrote a question mark next to ‘trustworthy’ on his whiteboard, near Shuichi’s picture. As much as it was a question, it felt like a pairing of the two of them. Shuichi was trustworthy, loved, respected. Kokichi was the question mark, an enigma-- an unknown variable, even to himself.

He lied down on his bed only to be jabbed by something in his pocket. He fished it out and found it was the ‘Key of Love’ that he won from the casino. Even he wasn’t sure why he had bought it, besides the fact that there was no prize more expensive. The day he let his guard down enough to be intimate with someone would be the day he’d find a knife in his back. At least the idea that nobody else could have it brought him some blithe shred of joy.

In fact, he could just throw it away. That would be funny. Monokuma had gone to all the trouble of explaining the damn thing to him, and he could just throw it in the garbage-- a little ‘fuck you’ to the mastermind. He clenched his fist around it, letting the ridges dig into his skin, and pulled back his fist. But, try as he might to throw it, he couldn’t actually get rid of it.

He wasn’t sure what it meant to him, the way he wasn’t sure why he’d gone out of his way to save the pieces of evidence from trials past. Mementos of friends he never had? Evidence that might lead him to uncovering the mastermind? If he knew the truth in full, it would be just that much easier for one of the others to torture it out of him.

And so he laid back down, holding the key close to his chest, and just added it to the list of things about himself he didn’t know.

\---

Kokichi walked through the door, feeling as if he should hang up his hat and coat. He had neither. He also wasn’t sure why he felt as if he had just spent a long day at work.

Shuichi turned around. “Oh! Welcome home, darling!”

“Darling?” Kokichi snorted. “You love me that much, Shuichi?”

“Well… yeah,” Shuichi said, giving a light laugh. “That’s why I married you.”

And he froze.

“What did you just say?” Kokichi asked, trying to hide the tremble in his voice.

“I said, I love you. That’s why I married you.”

The pony loose from the carousel and the giant bed behind them only fed into the unreality of the situation. He’d been transported here without memory of it, and Shuichi was here, and there were bondage toys hanging up, and the weirdest thing was that Shuichi was acting like he actually cared about him.

Marriage was something far, far out of the question. Someone would have to tolerate him first to marry him. And beyond the fact that Kokichi never trusted anyone, that he’d never let anyone in that close, there was the simple fact that he was an unlovable person.

Shuichi stepped closer. There was some kind of weird expression on his face-- genuine warmth and positive regard, or in Kokichi’s language, the faces people made at other people. “You look so tired. Did you have a long day? Let’s sit down together and you can tell me all about it.”

The next words escaped him automatically, the way his knee might jerk if it were hit. “Is this some kind of fucking joke?”

Shuichi’s eyes widened. “What… what do you mean?”

“What’s with this garbage?” Kokichi asked. “I’m good at spotting lies, and this little charade is a poor one.”

“I’m… not lying,” he said. “I really love you.”

Kokichi had prepared himself for all kinds of deaths. Maki could stab him, or choke him out again in a pinch; Gonta could catch on to Kokichi’s malintent and crush him under his powerful fists; Kaito could man up and finally smash his skull in. Yet the one death he hadn’t anticipated was this. It left him feeling dizzy, as if he stepped into an overheated sauna after walking through a blizzard.

And so he couldn’t stop the next word from coming out: “Why?”

Shuichi laughed again, but somehow Kokichi didn’t feel as if he were laughing at his expense. It had a soft and genuine quality to it, and it occurred to Kokichi that he hadn’t heard the other boy laugh like this once since they got in here. There were so many things about Shuichi that he still didn’t know. (There were still so many things about Shuichi that he might like to find out.)

“You’re… gonna make me say it, huh? That’s a little embarrassing,” Shuichi said. His cheeks flushed pink and, oh no, Kokichi felt as if his own were heating up too. “You’re clever, you’re funny, you’re fun to be around…” He reached forward, cupping Kokichi’s cheek. “I mean, let me put it like this… do you think the sun chooses to come up each morning?”

“Uh… no?”

“Exactly. It’s inevitable, and it’s been happening like that longer than we can imagine. That’s how it feels being in love with you. Like… I can’t imagine not loving you or not having been in love with you, the way I can’t imagine a time before the sun came up each morning.”

Kokichi squirmed out of the other boy’s touch. This wasn’t right. Shuichi had loved Kaede. He clearly wanted a stable, honest, happy relationship-- not something that a monster like himself could ever provide.

Kokichi almost let himself be fooled before it hit him: this was a dream. Monokuma had claimed that the Key of Love would cause him to wake up in someone’s dream as their ideal partner, and if he broke character, that person would wake up in anguish. Of course, it all made sense now. Shuichi was dreaming that he was Kaede.

“Hey,” Kokichi said. “Tell me my name.”

The other boy beamed. “Kokichi Ouma,” Shuichi sighed dreamily, as if it he really meant it.

Oh, no.  _Oh no._

“Uh, Kokichi, I hope I didn’t do anything to upset you… I really just want to cuddle my husband for a while. Do you want to lay down on the bed? Or… we don’t have to, I guess…” Shuichi said, his eyes downcast.

‘Husband’. Briefly, Kokichi entertained the idea of smacking him. That would wake the asshole up. Even if Shuichi would be anguished, who cares? Kokichi had hurt a lot of people-- himself most of all.

But here, he had a home (or, a hotel room that they both were pretending was a home). He had someone who loved him. Kokichi was a good actor. He could pretend for a little bit longer before smacking him across the face, the way an unlovable Supreme Leader like him would.

Just a little bit longer.

“Sure. Let’s snuggle,” Kokichi said, crawling into the bed. Shuichi’s smile was intoxicating, addicting, the way his eyes lit up and his nose crinkled. He laid down next to Kokichi and held the boy close in his arms as the little spoon.

It felt warm and oddly safe. He would’ve pegged Shuichi for a wimp, but his arms felt like they could protect him from anything. The closest thing to a hug that Kokichi had ever gotten was being held in place by one thug so another could punch him to his heart’s content. Even now, he was waiting for someone else to start swinging.

He wasn't someone who was deserving of love. In a world full of truth and lies, it was one truth he’d never tried to hide.

"I'm... just so happy," Shuichi said. His breath smelled like mint. "That we could have a life like this together. I guess it sounds silly, but I never thought I’d be a husband.”

"You didn’t?" Kokichi asked. The smallness of his own voice surprised him; without needing to be performative, his voice came out so soft.

"Yeah, well... I guess it started when I was young." He held the other boy a little tighter. "I used to take a lot of infidelity cases, or stuff like that. It felt like all relationships would stagnate and die and you’d both wind up hiring the same detective trying to catch the other partner cheating.”

“Sounds about right.”

“I wasn't even sure I believed in love until I met you. Kind of like I said... I don’t know when I first realized I loved you. I spent so long thinking I was someone who couldn’t be loved that I didn’t even think about someone else loving me.”

This took Kokichi by surprise. “You? Someone who couldn’t be loved? You, Mr. Popular, are telling Kokichi Ouma of all people that you didn’t think anyone could love you?”

“Yeah.” His voice had become deathly serious. “I don’t know… after I solved my first murder case, I thought… everything I’d done to find the truth had only made people miserable. I outed the couples as cheating on one another, and now I’d sent a vigilante to prison for killing an abuser.” He put on a grim smile. “I thought the world would be better if I wasn’t in it to begin with.”

Kokichi listened quietly. For once, he couldn’t think of anything snarky to say. Minus the detective work, it was a sentiment eerily similar to his own feelings about himself.

Monokuma had claimed that memories would be wiped after waking up. There was the chance he was lying, of course. There was also the chance that he knew Kokichi would be expecting a lie and it would be a double-bluff. There was also the chance that he didn’t care and, if he could talk without anyone remembering, he was going to take a chance.

“I grew up without knowing my parents,” Kokichi said. “I kinda got the hint, but I always wondered what happened to them. So… I did a little detective work of my own.”

Shuichi’s arms holding him tight urged him on. “I found out that they didn’t have a better reason. They just didn’t want me. Like, really? You’re just gonna make me live with an answer like that?” He laughed, feeling as if he were filled with venom. “I had to make up some better reasons or I couldn’t live with it. Like… cause I’m ugly. Or they couldn’t abort me. Or they sold me for drug money. Or some combination of those things.”

“Kokichi…”

“But I still remember that idiotic truth I fought so hard for,” Kokichi said. “It’s burned into my mind. So many people fight for truth like it’s some beacon of hope. But it’s amoral, just a tool that can hurt people just as much as it helps them.”

Shuichi curled locks of Kokichi’s hair around his finger. “Kokichi, I’m… I’m so sorry.”

Yeah, you should be, Kokichi thought. Now there was another truth scaring him just as much, and it was that he wasn’t just acting like he was enjoying this.

“Whatever. It was a long time ago,” Kokichi said, suddenly too tired to make a joke out of it. “I just mean I know how you feel. About feeling like nobody’s ever gonna love you.”

Shuichi just ran his fingers along the outline of the other boy’s jaw. “But now we have each other.”

Do we? Kokichi thought. This was just a dream, after all. A lie. It might not even be Shuichi’s dream, but his own fever dream of someone giving a crap about him. After all, Shuichi hated him in real life, and that’s just the way it should be.

He couldn’t be hurt again if he made up a world in which he couldn’t be hurt, if he pushed Shuichi away before he could get this close. And now the dream version of the detective was planting little kisses on the crown of his head. 

After a while, Shuichi sighed, and his breath was hot on Kokichi's neck. "It's like... I know lying is a part of who you are, because you've had to lie so much. But even then, I still feel as if I trust you. And with you, it's never been boring."

"How could you trust someone who's a liar? That goes against the nature of lying."

"Because I believe who I want to believe in. It's what Kaito Momota taught me, the person I trust more than anything!"

Kokichi felt Shuichi's jaw tighten, his body tense. Either he had become sad, or he was trying not to laugh. Either way, it was a load of crap. "That was a lie," Kokichi said.

"One day, I'm going to trick you," Shuichi said, resting his chin on Kokichi's shoulder. The smaller boy could feel his smile.  

"Maybe you already have." Kokichi rolled over, looking into Shuichi's eyes. "Maybe we're just tricking each other."

"Then it would be the greatest prank of all time." He pressed his forehead against Kokichi's. "One worthy of a great Supreme Leader."

Kokichi could feel the rise and fall of Shuichi's chest with his breaths. He reached out with a shaky hand and rested it on his chest. His heartbeat came in a perfect rhythm, something he wouldn’t expect from a dream. Even if this were a dream- and by extension, a lie- it felt so real. Even Shuichi's scent was exactly the way he remembered it. When they were this close, there was no truth, no lies, just things that couldn’t be communicated in words.

“Er… could I ask you a question?” Shuichi asked.

“Shoot.”

“You haven’t told me that you love me back yet today.”

Kokichi blinked. Shuichi fumbled. “I mean, I know you do. You don’t have to always reassure me, I know I’ve got my confidence issues and all that, but… I guess I just want to hear it every now and again.”

I love you. He’d never said the words, in retrospect-- no parents, no friends, no lovers. He hadn’t even said them to himself. Kokichi didn’t like himself so much as he knew that this was it, he had played the genetic lottery and been given a losing ticket, and now he had to put up with what he had.

There were so many ways he could say them. A high pitched, whiny voice, like a talking birthday card. A deep, seductive growl. A cheer in three parts, like a cheerleader: I! Love! You! He was a great liar. He could say a few simple words.

It felt as if his throat were closing up.

“It’s… fine, if you can’t. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything,” Shuichi said.

The world was beginning to fade around them in great swaths of black. It began to feel as if his body were floating away. Was the dream ending? But Shuichi looked miserable. The thought of leaving this dream without having said those three words was intolerable, as if Shuichi wouldn’t be the only one who woke up in agony.

Kokichi swallowed a lump in his throat. He placed a hand on Shuichi’s cheek. “Shuichi.”

“Huh?”

“I…” he struggled. It felt as if he’d been stripped naked, and not in a fun way. As if Shuichi had peeled apart layer after rotten layer of him and left something bare, fleshy, the way he’d been when left behind by his parents as an infant.

In the end, the dream faded more and more, and Kokichi couldn’t say it. It just was against his nature. This was only Shuichi’s fantasy, after all, not his. He couldn’t tell the truth.

But he could lie.

“I… I don’t love you,” Kokichi finished. And then he pulled Shuichi’s head forward and pressed the detective’s lips against his own. Shuichi was surprised but melted into the kiss, running his fingers through Kokichi’s hair.

It suited him for his first kiss to be a lie, too, happening in this weird fantasy in which they must have kissed at least once already. Yet the feeling of Shuichi’s lips was so real, so soft and warm and intimate. The warmth pooling in his chest was real. The other boy’s feelings might even be real. Kokichi wasn’t sure if it terrified him or pleased him or both, and in the end, he decided that he might not want to know.

(If he knew the truth in full, it would be just that much easier for one of the others to torture it out of him.)

When they finally pulled back, Shuichi was smiling again. “Your words might’ve been a lie, but that spoke volumes.”

Kokichi smiled back. “So you think you know me, now? You can see past my lies? That’ll bore you quick.”

Shuichi, a moment before the dream ended, lifted Kokichi’s hand and kissed his ring finger. “I never could.”

Truth, lies-- Kokichi had long given up trying to figure out which was better. This was a lie, and an elaborate one. Yet for once he felt genuinely happy, not just putting on a smile to fool the world outside. And that was one small truth he didn’t mind accepting.

\---

“You look well-rested,” Kokichi said.

Shuichi gave him an odd look. “Yeah, I guess I… slept well last night, for once.”

“Wow! Those horrible bags under your eyes are even finally gone!” he said. “Did you have any dreams?”

His breath hitched as Shuichi thought. If he did remember, Kokichi had the advantage of writing it off as just a dream and denying everything.

“I… don’t remember. I just woke up feeling really happy,” he admitted, smiling-- his eyes bright, his nose crinkling up.

Kokichi couldn’t help himself from smiling back. Shuichi was happy. For now, that was enough.

“Why? What did you dream about? Do I even want to know?” Shuichi asked.

“Oh, just about… riding on the back of a war elephant and crushing helpless prisoners under its foot,” Kokichi said, casually.

“That was a lie, wasn’t it?” Shuichi shot back.

He laughed. Either he was becoming more transparent or the other boy was catching on. “Yes,” he said. As he walked away, he reached into his pocket, clutching the Key of Love tight in his fingers. “Yes it was.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first NDRv3 work, so I hope it's ok.  
> commission info: https://officiallilith.tumblr.com/post/174676670574/commissions-are-open


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